Learn Spanish by Translating Articles to English?

[SA Homeschooler]

First let me explain that both my husband and I are native Spanish speakers but our 14yo ds is not.  We speak mostly English to/with him however he is used to us speaking Spanish to each other or interspersing conversations with a smattering of Spanish.  So what I'm saying is that his ear is trained and he does indeed understand more than he speaks.

 

For the last two years he has done grammar based programs....one was a workbook and the other an online program called StudySpanish.com, however I feel that he needs a change.  I was considering just having him watch Hulu Latino but it is so easy to mentally "check out" while passively watching shows.

 

So, I am toying with the idea of assigning short news articles written in Spanish [CNN/Fox Latino] for him to translate in to English.  With the hope that perhaps in the latter half of the school year we can switch to having him translate from English to Spanish.

 

Do you think it is possible to learn Spanish in this way?  I just feel that there is a disconnect from the Grammar to actual speech or written word.

[Ethel Mertz]

This is how I learned Spanish in grad school. I added in a weekly grammar review, listened to a Spanish radio station in the background, and practiced with native speakers in casual settings.

[SA Homeschooler]

Thank you!  Yes, we will definitely make a bigger effort to speak to him in Spanish; and since we live in South Texas he is surrounded by opportunities to speak Spanish.

[Sebastian (a lady)]

That is very similar to the beginning of intensive German tutoring I had years ago.

We would get a short article. The teacher would read it aloud or have us read it. Overnight we had to go through it and look up, write down any words we didn't know. The next day we had to summarize the article in German, then summarize in English, then answer question, then read it aloud in German.

 

Don't overestimate how long the articles should be at the start. Our first couple wer only a few paragraphs and it took about two hours to translate the first week. Plus the class time discussing and reading.

 

But it was great practice.

[swimmermom3]

Thank you!  Yes, we will definitely make a bigger effort to speak to him in Spanish; and since we live in South Texas he is surrounded by opportunities to speak Spanish.

 

Please do expose your son to as much actual conversation practice as possible. It's not enough to read it, translate it, and hear it; you have got to speak it. My niece just graduated from university with a minor in Spanish. She has studied Spanish for 8 years and still struggles to speak it at times. We were talking about this with our Spanish exchange student, who has studied English for 8 years and is fairly fluent. He is interested in languages and conversation has always been a big part of his language practice. It has helped that he has been able to travel and to immerse himself in the languages for chunks of time. Your son is fortunate in that he does not have to travel to have his Spanish conversations.

 

[Ohdanigirl]

I am not a native Spanish speaker, but a heritage speaker. Dh is also a heritage speaker, but spent is teen years living in DF. My oldest hated learning and even refused to speak Spanish when we moved to Mexico. He heard it often, but avoided using it. I spoke English in the home, because I wanted the our DC to have a good grasp of the English Language and was teaching English to my BIL's.

 

A couple of things that helped.

 

Watching movies in Spanish once a week. Watching news and soccer games in Spanish. Adding Spanish books to read aloud. Changing the TV language to Spanish. Having him read books in Spanish silently, and out loud. Also reading a newspaper. Speaking to him in Spanish and requiring him to answer in Spanish.

 

The last thing is what really helped his pronunciation/accent. Having heard plenty of Spanish, he really did know quite a bit. I can't say he loves speaking Spanish, but it really helped. I started this about three years ago. We moved back to the states this year, and he easily Aced third year Spanish for Spanish speakers at aB&M school. Everyone else in his class was a native speaker, some were recent immigrants.

 

Good luck!

 

ETA: It might be Good to actually answer your question. I think your idea would work great. It will teach translating skills, reading, writing, spelling, etc. maybe asking him to summarize to you as well. Just yo add in the speaking practice. ;)

[SA Homeschooler]

I just found something that might help me try out my strategy.  Thank you all for your input; it is greatly appreciated!

 

http://www.traduce.co/?gclid=CMbn_aXprb0CFcRi7AodqBEAtA#

 

Boo...this service is no longer available.

 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Check out the BBC world service. Back when dh and I were learning German we were subscribed to daily German news emails. They sent an email 1-2 times a day. It had national news (German), world news and sports. Each item was a short paragraph. The world pieces were good because we were reading about the same items in English. And it was free. (This type thing may be an app or RSS feed now. )

 

I think Duolingo may also have text items to translate.

[SA Homeschooler]

That's great!! Thank you!

[Sebastian (a lady)]

So I'm having trouble finding the email service we used to get.  BBC discontinued German broadcasts in 1999, so maybe the emails didn't last much longer after that.

 

They do have a pretty full news service in Spanish, called BBC Mundo. 

 

We found that short articles on oddball subjects (child camel jockeys for example) were good to start with. Because the topics were unusual, the article was usually more straightforward narration. 

 

You might try using different formats.  Paper based, which will require him to look up words and write down what he doesn't know.  I think this is good for getting new vocabulary into memory.

 

Reading online. In my browser, I can hover over a word and Google will supply some translation suggestions.  This can help with speed.

 

It might also help to find sites that do video news shorts and post the transcript below.  Try to read along, at speed, while the video plays.

 

BBC has a pretty decent language learning arm directed at students.  It includes Spanish.  I think if you look in the iTunes store you may find some of their Spanish language podcasts that are directed at language learners.